I bought my copy of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace from a used bookstore in Evanston back in 2011. The book had apparently been living on a sunbaked shelf for a while, because by the time I purchased it, the in-your-face DayGlo orange spine of the massive paperback had faded to "jaundiced Norwegian."
(The cover damage was OK with me. I've been told that Infinite Jest is a book that a certain type of person -- who in my imagination is also an unironic ascot wearer and self-taught mixologist -- purchases for his shelves ornamentally, just so he can appear to be the kind of hip dude who reads giant postmodern novels. When it comes to how visitors react to my books, Infinite Jest is probably the least of my worries, but still, I was content not to have the telltale orange spine screaming out from my bookcase.)
I really like Wallace's writing, so I was itching to check out Infinite Jest, which everyone agrees is his masterpiece. But instead the novel wound up sitting inertly on my shelf for seven years. I had a lot of other reading and writing to do during that period and didn't have the bandwidth to take on such a brick and finish it promptly. (Slowly chipping away at a book doesn't work for me; I don't feel like I'm able to properly internalize the novelist's intended pacing and form unless I read steadily and keep the whole thing in my mind. (I understand if you now feel the urge to give me a wedgie.))
I finally had time to take a crack at it in 2018, the Year of Postdoc. It still took a while: I started in March and finished sometime late in the summer.
Did you know that Infinite Jest takes place in Boston? I didn't. And not just Boston: a majority of the novel is set in the same neighborhood (Allston-Brighton), and even the same half-mile section of neighborhood (Comm Ave, fanning out from the Warren St. stop) where I lived. Wallace's style of writing has been called encyclopedic, and whole pages of the novel are lovingly devoted to describing the streets around my old apartment in grubby, familiar detail: the "quarter-hourly trundle and ding" of the Green Line, the “complexly decaying grounds of Enfield Marine" (a.k.a. Brighton Marine, home to my doctor and dentist offices), the "crammed-together triple-decker houses" that have been "carved up inside into apartments for like alienated B.U. students" or "even more alienated B.C. students."
I don't think being Hal Incandenza's neighbor made me enjoy Infinite Jest any more or less than I otherwise would've, but I'm still glad I procrastinated seven years before reading it. It felt good to read the novel as I was moving away, having it take me on some last imaginative walks through the neighborhood. The timing was coincidental, but it was one of those comforting coincidences that make you feel like you're on time.
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Predictions of Varying Certainty for 2018:
- Let's pack all the big stuff into to one: GR and I will move back to the Chicagoland area, landing in an apartment in a near-enough suburb that makes it easy for GR to access the city for remote work, but is also conveniently near to the college where I'll be adjunct-teaching.
- Before we go, I'll make a Bucket List of Things to Do in Boston That I Always Meant to Do But Never Got Around To -- Until Now!. I'll achieve approximately 50% of the Bucket List items.
- We'll buy a car. My guess is that it'll be a mid-2010s Mazda sedan, or else a mid-2010s Honda Fit.
- I'll go on the academic job market again in the fall, giving The Dream another go.
- We'll visit Sydney and see Drew. I will have at least one experience there that will make me think, "Oh, so Australia really is like that."
- I will publish at least one academic article and present work at a conference.
- Inspired by this transitional moment in my life, I'll reinvest in one of my former hobbies with renewed interest (possibilities include: graphite/charcoal drawing, rock climbing, concert-going, flute playing, frequent blogging).
- Babysitting will cease to alarm me and will instead become a regular part of my existence. No children will be harmed in the fulfillment of this prediction.
How prescient I actually was:
- Pretty close! Move to the midwest? Check. GR's remote work? Check. Adjunct teaching gig? Check. But we moved to Chicago; the suburbs haven't claimed us yet.
- This was failing-upwards situation, in that I exceeded expectations and achieved more like 75% of Bucket List items, including attending a Bruins game (fun!) and kayaking on the Charles (arduous!).
- Called it. We're now the proud owners of a 2015 Mazda3 hatchback. It's brown. I named it Worcester.
- Check. Similar results as last year.
- Before going to Sydney, I occasionally doubted that the trip would manage to justify the excruciating, 24-hour-each-way plane rides necessary to make it happen. But reader, it did, and I will treasure the memories forever. Except for the memories of the giant-ass spiders that build Shelob-caliber webs in every available outdoor nook and cranny. (Australia really is like that!)
- Kind of. I got an article accepted into a book that'll be published in 2019, and got a paper accepted into a conference that will occur four days into 2019. So this was a rebuilding year of sorts for my academic credentials.
- Does re-dabbling in several dormant hobbies count? I went rock climbing once, attended two concerts (with a third on the docket), started taking YouTube lessons on the acoustic guitar, and increased my blogging rate by about 50%.
- Not really: I babysat precisely once, two weeks ago. On the bright side, everyone survived.
Predictions of Varying Certainty for 2019:
- GR and I will re-up the lease on our apartment, partly because we like our current pad but mostly because we don't want to have to move again already. We'll start making tentative, slouching moves towards homeownership (including but not limited to my figuring out why everyone is always complaining about property taxes).
- I'll get a full-time job. I'll also go on the academic job market again in the fall, for the third and maybe final time.
- I'll visit a new state, and/or explore a new major city of a state I've already visited.
- I'll keep working at those guitar lessons. I won't be consistent about practicing and will remain firmly at novice level, but I'll make some progress.
- GR and I will see Hamilton, courtesy of Broadway in Chicago.
- [Insert an extensive amount of angsty dithering about how or whether I should include on this list the don't-get-excited-it's-still-TBD possibility of GR and I "starting a family," which will likely become the subject of its own blog post. (The angsty dithering, that is. Why does it feel so fraught?)]
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